I entertain conspiracy theories, and yes, I’ve gone down some rabbit holes during my journey. Some profoundly shifted my sense of the world, others were nonsense. I have not gone back and vetted these stories for accuracy.

Thanks for contacting me (multiple times). I had received an email some months ago regarding lostrepublic which invited me to make a bid.

I followed the link with the intention of making a low bid, but your website didn’t allow any bidding below $498 dollars.

Earlier, I was very interested in this domain and made offers of over $1,000, only to be told that the owner had rejected offers of $20,000. Was it you guys who told me this? Ridiculous. You shouldn’t have been so arrogant and greedy.

Lostrepublic is much less important to me now. I decided a few months ago to shut down .

If you want to sell me the lostrepublic for $100, I’ll buy it. I’m not even sure why, but I’ll do it. If you have offers higher than $100, please take them and leave me alone.

I created this blog in 2007 after having been recalled from civilian life for a third combat tour, this one to Afghanistan’s Kunar Project. I created it because with a few notable exceptions, the counter-narrative to our government’s propaganda was largely unknown. I felt alone in my skepticism, and wanted to cry out, if only into the void.

This blog was my outlet. I’ve been posting 2-3 stories a day for over six years. Since I started tracking in 2009, I’ve had over 80,000. Lately, it’s been about 40-50 per day.

I knew what I was against before I knew what I was for — before I discovered the Austrian School of Economics, a definition of liberty. Curiously, my intellectual journey started and ended with security. (Perhaps culminated is a better word than ended, because I’m still traveling.)

In any case, it started with a skepticism about our wars, passed through the Constitution, to Austrian Economics, and culminated with Hoppe’s obliteration of the idea of the state as a monopolistic provider of security.

I will leave this blog in place, a monument to the passing of the pro-government, pro-war conception of world I had been indoctrinated with long, long ago, and a celebration of my libertarian awakening.

It’s mostly bad news here. Mostly the stuff I found shocking, disturbing, the stuff I couldn’t square with what my teachers told me in school. But once the illusions are broken, then behind this bad news there is great hope and happiness. The bad news is the vanquishing of false gods.

So it’s a monument, and an archive of my intellectual journey from 2007 until 2013. Perhaps I’ll still add a post occasionally.

I have two reasons for leaving this project: 1) I am absolutely thrilled to have discovered the vast numbers of people who still believe in liberty, strive for a deep understanding, and live their lives by their beliefs. I am overjoyed. The excellence of their proselytizing makes this blog much less important that it seemed in 2007. 2) I need time to write and pursue other projects. I’ll maintain a big presence on the internet with my own writing, reviewing books and more. You can connect to me here: http://screamingatthemountains.com.

– New Yorker writer writes great article describing moral hazard in medicine, then, instead of searching for the root of the hazard, concludes money is evil and free markets don’t work: The Cost Conundrum

– Greece’s austerity plan condemned by trade unions & public sector employees, Violent Protests in Greece. My interpretation: many people live not off the free market, but from government coercion. These are people who earn government salaries, industries with government subsidies or protections. Many politicians have made their careers by granting favors to these groups. Once a government is no longer able to pay them, these people should be force into the voluntary sector of the economy, but they do not go quietly. They protest, cry, advertise their suffering in an attempt to get to government to continue it’s exploitation of the voluntary economy on their behalf.